#protodermis

[toaimahordika]

Can you run DOOM in a pool of energized protodermis?

[chimeramilk]

[chimeramilk]

[0m3g45n1p3r4lph4]

Happy second Bionicle day everyone!

I've been thinking a lot about Protodermis lately - it's origins, intelligence, capabilities, and use cases. I'd like to share my notes, theories, and shouldercanons here. I've got a lot to say though, so I'm gonna segment this into parts, starting here with the origins of the material and how that may have influenced the entirety of Magnan civilization and life itself.

A Study on Protodermis, Part 1: Origins

It's been described that Energized Protodermis comes from the core of Spherus Magna. I think that fact is often glossed over - the planetary core is not molten rock like our own, but a liquid metal with seemingly unknowable properties. But a metallic core isn't so unrealistic, and at that depth the heat and pressure would melt it for sure.

No, there's a much more important detail I'd like to propose. I think that Energized Protodermis sparked life on Spherus Magna, much in the same way Water did on Earth - allowing minerals to develop into proteins, into single-cellular organisms and eventually multicellular ones. This is nearly explicitly backed in text when a leak of EP on the island of Mata Nui causes barren soil to grow with diverse biomes of plant life as perfect wild habitats for both native organic animals and now-wild Rahi. But I think this can be examined even further.

The organic beings on Spherus Magna have such high metallic content in their bodies that their bones are almost entirely metal - a bone tool for them is usable as a durable sword that can be sharpened and polished, resulting in metallic clangs when clashed. I think this is a direct result of life spawning from liquid metal instead of water, in the same way we have such immense water contents in our bodies.

This "spark of life", however it works, somehow carried into the material itself. It's entirely possible it developed sentience much slower than the rest of life on the planet, and I'll get into why as I discuss theories on its capabilities and powers, but this would also very well explain why the Great Beings never knew it to be sentient - it genuinely wasn't before the Shattering, or at least too early in that development.

TL;DR: Energized Protodermis is the living Primordial Soup of Spherus Magna

So Energized Protodermis starts life on the planet and itself begins to spread, creating what likely started as underground springs before any reached the then-vibrant surface. Considering I still think it's alive at that point, the expansion and springing of the liquid is very likely a natural growth - possibly even a search for material to consume like food. Is it possible that this is what happens when Energized Protodermis destroys what it's not destined to transform? I think it's very likely. Matter consumed and converted into near pure energy, with maybe a little of an idea of it remaining within the developing intelligence. In fact, it's also possible that the consumption of organic matter it helped spawn is the major reason it developed intelligence in the first place, like how certain multicellular organisms developed these other functions by consuming things that had certain functions and integrating them instead of fully destroying them. Then as life around EP develops, evolves, and becomes smarter, EP consumes that and begins to develop similarly.

From nothing you came, into nothing you shall become, and the nothing will become more like you were.

[rahiwatching]

Protodermis

[legend-as-old-as-time]

Chatting with @mothnem, we created some headcanons about kanoka creation in Metru Nui:

- Dume forbid further research on the process. He feared that the matoran could become independent if they knew how to determine the results or create new ones. That's why nobody can even predict which powers and power levels a kanoka receives upon completition to this day.

- The process of creating kanoka - pouring liquid protodermis into molds, letting them cool, repeating as often as necessary, then check the results - is an unwitting recreation of the Great Beings' first experiments with protodermis on how to achieve specific effects.

- The "Reconstitute At Random" effect is the base trait of protodermis (it's base state is liquid). Introduce a strong enough stimulus and liquid protodermis shapes into a random form including powers / traits / etc. Energized protodermis' effects are much more unpredictable and violatile.

- Kanoka molds limit this process but only so far. Without specific, guided stimuli, the results remain random. There's a reason that "Reconstitute At Random" is the most common kanoka power.

- One factor that seems to determine powers as well as elemental energies lies in fine, almost untracable embossings on the surface on masks, tools like heatstones, as well as living beings. It's speculated that they channel the shaped protodermis' energy.

[chimeramilk]

[cha5otic]

Do you think the Great Beings from the Melding Universe interrogated Vultraz, discovering that their counterparts instead of fixing the protodermis leak directly, instead create SIX FREAKING UNIVERSES (+one that kinda exploded) using the very material that, idk, going to blow the planet up if mined excessively plus is in high demand for war purposes

Prolly why there were so few left because they were murdered for their stupidity